s/o LOs falling asleep

WinesNotWhines · April 2011

It sounds like most moms of older babies and toddlers put LOs in their cribs when they're still fairly awake and let them fall asleep on their own. Is that right? How did you get to that point? Did you have to do some sleep training?

I still nurse M to sleep most of the time. Sometimes he's not fully asleep, but he's very drowsy. I guess that will change when he weans in a few months. I'm a little worried about how we're going to get him to go to sleep at night when he's no longer nursing. We do the same bedtime routine every night - bath, pjs, book, sleep sack, nurse, sleep. He's used to it and I think his mind is set to "sleep mode" by the end.

DCtoLowcountry · April 2011

The routine really does put them into "sleep mode" even without nursing / bottle. We gave up the bottle at bedtime at the same time we switched to sippies, so between 12-13 months. So for us he gets milk about a half hour before bed, bath if it's bath night, jammies, brush teeth, stories, into the bed awake. We Ferbered at 6 months, and I never thought the day would come when he wouldn't protest bedtime (always for just a few minutes), but around 15 months when he switched to one nap, he was so grateful to be put down in the crib he'd pass right out. Now he waves and says "bye" as I leave.

eeclem · April 2011

DCtoLowcountry:
The routine really does put them into "sleep mode" even without nursing / bottle. We gave up the bottle at bedtime at the same time we switched to sippies, so between 12-13 months. So for us he gets milk about a half hour before bed, bath if it's bath night, jammies, brush teeth, stories, into the bed awake. We Ferbered at 6 months, and I never thought the day would come when he wouldn't protest bedtime (always for just a few minutes), but around 15 months when he switched to one nap, he was so grateful to be put down in the crib he'd pass right out. Now he waves and says "bye" as I leave.

This has been our experience, exactly (well, we were lucky in that he did generally go down pretty well after Ferber).

I will say that from the very beginning, I would nurse C and then usually hand him off to DH for a story and final rock or whatever. I think that helped a lot in keeping him from relying on nursing to fall asleep. And once we weaned and switched to sippies, he was not interested in milk before bed at all.

amh_navyblue · April 2011

I nursed DD#1 before bed until she was 18 months old (she was mostly weaned at year, but we held onto the evening and morning nursings until then) and sometimes she went down asleep and sometimes she went down awake, but either way it worked. When I stopped nursing her at night there was a night or two when she was a little fussy, but it was fairly insignificant.

With DD#2 I have been in the habit of nursing her before bed as well. Until about 2-3 months ago (she's almost 14 months now), she would always fall asleep nursing, but more recently sometimes she'll go to bed either awake or pretty drowsy and fall asleep on her own without a problem. While it's obviously not the case for everyone, I think my experience shows that kids figure this stuff out if you give them an overall routine. The routine gives the LO the sign that it's time for bed, not the nursing, so that even if nursing stays a part of the routine, it is not the only or central thing and once you get to a point where you're ready to drop it, it's not a big deal.

kafunder · April 2011

Most nights, we put ours down drowsy but awake. We've always done this since day 1. Right from the start, we never rocked or fed them to sleep b/c I knew if I was by myself (like at naptime during maternity leave), there'd be no way I could do that for both of them.

I think the bedtime routine is key to this. Our routine is bath (some nights), PJs and sleep sack, bottle, and book. Sometimes, they are too tired for a book, so they go right to bed. Most nights, they're pretty awake but tired when we put them into the crib. We put them in the crib, they roll around for a bit, we do about 2 rounds of paci replacements, and then they fall asleep. I think if you switch up your bedtime routine so the book comes at the end, you could get him away from nursing to sleep.

Also, we used to do the swaddle/sleep sack at the end, but we found that putting on the sleep sack woke them up/stimulated them to much. They thought it was playtime again. Now, we put on the sleep sack when we put on the PJs. Changing that step has really helped them get into sleep mode faster.

tomandcourt · April 2011

I nursed J to sleep for a long time, so don't worry too much. They'll figure it out. As he got older he wouldn't fall all the way asleep during nursing, but would go down easily.

Do you nurse with the lights out? One thing that helped with the transition was to nurse with a dim light on, so he knew it wasn't time to sleep yet. We slowly transitioned from bath (if bath night)/sleep sack/book/lights out/nurse, to bath/sleep sack/bottle/book (with dim light), and it was fine. Well, it was until he went on this weird not-falling-alseep binge. But he's never upset - he knows it's time to sleep and just needs to wind down.

How do they get him to sleep at daycare?

tracy042206 · April 2011

I rocked Maggie to sleep until she wouldn't let me (9mo). She was just so mobile by then that she wanted to climb all over me instead of getting rocked to sleep after her bottle. At that point we did CIO and she learned to put herself to sleep. Molly was better about that earlier but that was just due to having 2 to get to bed at night.

My friend would rock her 2yo to sleep at night and then he eventually put himself to sleep as well.

If he still STTN with you putting him to sleep and you don't mind doing it - ie it doesn't take forever, you don;t have a million other things you NEED to be doing etc, then I would keep putting him to sleep.

Mrs.Handy · April 2011

We experimented with a few sleep solutions before we did Ferber recently.

I used to nurse to sleep and then we got the No-Cry Sleep Solution. I used Pantley's Gentle Removal to break LO of his nurse to sleep habit. Now once in a blue moon if he is really tired he will nurse to sleep. Otherwise, he has

bath/massage (we'll probably get rid of this pretty soon since he's so squirmy nowadays)

PJs

book

nurse

rock for a little bit more to calm down

put down awake but sleepy (he will fuss for 5-10 minutes although last night he didn't cry at all! It was great

I think we are going to switch the nurse and book, because lately he has been so anxious for a boob during his book that we have to shorten it.

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